That Mickey Mouse Law

Today's topic comes to us courtesy of Aamthen, who in the Dewey Decimal comments thread, asked:

[I]f the DDC was invented in the 1870s how can it still be under copyright? I thought copyrights (before the DMCA) only lasted 17 years.

Good question! The current copyright terms are as follows:

- For works created in 1978 or later, author's life plus 70 years (upped from 50 years in 1998). If it's a non-person creator (John Doe created Screwy McSquirrel for Disneycorp, Disneycorp holds the copyright) it's 95 years from initial publication or if the work isn't published for a long while, 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.

- For works created before 1978, the initial term was for 28 years, then renewable for another 28 (then upped to 47, for a total of 75 years.) In 1998, congress extended the renewal by 20 years to make the the total 95. Also, congress passed a law that the renewal is automatic for any work published between 1964 and 1977.

Maybe you're confused with patents, which last 21 years after the patent grant. Maybe it's confusion with trademarks, which last 10 years. Maybe it's confusion with the law dealing with copyright, U.S. Code 17. Or, maybe you're confused with the 17 year cicadas, which are back this year. Look out though, someone just had a severe allergic reaction after sauteeing and eating thirty of them. He was allergic to shellfish, though.

Cicadas aside, we still haven't covered how the DDC is covered by copyright still. The answer is versions. The DDC is under its 22nd edition, and each new version is covered under a new copyright. As long as the system undergoes significant modification on an ongoing basis, it can more or less be covered indefinitely. So, there's your answer on that.

You may have noticed above that all the terms were extended by 20 years in 1998. This is largely due to those happy-go-lucky folks at Walt Disney. Mickey Mouse was first "published" in 1928, which meant the design of Mickey would have gone into the public domain in 2003, with several other characters to follow on soon after. Rather than let that happen, the folks at Disney (plus some other lesser contributors) threw millions and millions of dollars at congress, and in 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Extention Act was passed, meaning all the works that were supposed to go Public Domain in 1999 got pushed off until 2019.

The law was challenged in Eldred v. Ashcroft, where the plaintiff argued that the copyright extention was unconstituional. It's an interesting argument. Here's what the constitution says about copyright:

the Congress shall have power [...] to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

The intent is fairly clear: if no copyrights existed, people wouldn't have much incentive to create new things, so we grant them patents and copyrights (for limited times) so they can make some money for their effort and innovation, and continue to do so. Makes sense. The Eldred case said, "what progress is being promoted by letting a corporation cash in for 95 years instead of 75 years? It's not relevant."

While Eldred lost, they did make the additional argument that a healthy public domain is also necessary to promote the advancement of art -- many famous works were based on others that would have been a violation under current copyright terms. In fact, one notable company makes a habit of making a lot of money off redoing public-domain nineteenth century works, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Alice in Wonderland.

So, what happens when Mickey is threatened again in 2019? A very cynical person might remark that with that much financial weight to throw around, copyright law will always be just long enough to make sure Mickey Mouse never enters the public domain. A very cynical person may add that Disney's The Jungle Book was released months after the expiration of Rudyard Kipling's copyright. A very cynical person just might be on to something.